REVIEW -- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Spider-Man: No Way Home is a 2021 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man, co-produced by Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It is the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and the 27th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Jon Watts and written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. It stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man alongside Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Benedict Wong, Tony Revolori, Marisa Tomei, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire. In the film, Parker asks Dr. Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) to make his identity as Spider-Man a secret again with magic after its public revelation in Far From Home, but this breaks open the multiverse and allows supervillains from alternate realities to enter Parker's universe.

A third MCU Spider-Man film was planned during the production of Homecoming in 2017. By August 2019, negotiations between Sony and Marvel Studios to alter their deal—in which they produce the Spider-Man films together—ended with Marvel Studios leaving the project; however, a negative fan reaction led to a new deal between the companies a month later. Watts, McKenna, Sommers, and Holland were set to return at that time. Filming began in October 2020 in New York City before moving to Atlanta that month and wrapping in March 2021. No Way Home explores the concept of the multiverse and ties the MCU to past Spider-Man film series, with numerous actors reprising their roles from the Spider-Man films directed by Sam Raimi and Marc Webb. The return of previous Spider-Man actors Maguire and Garfield was the subject of speculation, and Sony, Marvel, and the cast attempted to conceal their involvement despite numerous leaks.

Spider-Man: No Way Home premiered at the Fox Village Theatre in Los Angeles on December 13, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States on December 17, as part of Phase Four of the MCU. The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised the story, direction, action sequences, and the cast's performances and chemistry. No Way Home has grossed over $1 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2021. It set several box office records, including records for films released after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is the first film released during the pandemic to cross the $1 billion mark. A sequel is in development.

Plot

After Quentin Beck frames Peter Parker for murder and reveals his identity as Spider-Man, Parker, his girlfriend MJ, best friend Ned Leeds, and aunt May are interrogated by the Department of Damage Control. Lawyer Matt Murdock gets Parker's charges dropped, but the group grapples with negative publicity. After Parker, MJ, and Ned's MIT applications are rejected, Parker goes to the Sanctum Sanctorum to ask Stephen Strange for help. Strange suggests a spell that would make people forget Parker is Spider-Man. Parker repeatedly requests alterations to let his loved ones retain their memories, which corrupts the spell, but Strange contains it and makes Parker leave.

Parker goes to convince an MIT administrator to reconsider MJ and Ned's applications, but is suddenly attacked by Otto Octavius. Octavius rips Parker's nanotechnology from his Iron Spider suit, which bonds with his mechanical tentacles and allows Parker to disable them. As Norman Osborn arrives and attacks, Strange teleports Parker back to the Sanctorum and locks Octavius in a cell next to Curt Connors. Strange explains that the corrupted spell summoned people from other universes who know Spider-Man's identity, and orders Parker, MJ, and Ned to find and capture them.

As Parker captures Max Dillon and Flint Marko, Osborn reclaims control of himself from his split Green Goblin personality. He goes to a F.E.A.S.T. building, where May comforts him before Parker retrieves him. While discussing their battles with Spider-Man, Osborn, Octavius, and Dillon realize that they were pulled from their universes just before their deaths. Strange prepares a spell that will send the villains back to their respective universes, but Parker argues that they should first cure the villains' powers and insanity to prevent their deaths upon their return. Parker steals the boxed spell, traps Strange in the Mirror Dimension, and, with May, takes the villains to Happy Hogan's apartment. He cures Octavius, but Osborn's Goblin persona takes control and convinces the uncured villains to betray Parker. As Dillon, Marko, and Connors escape, Osborn injures May, who tells Parker that "with great power, there must also come great responsibility" before dying.

Ned discovers he can create portals using Strange's sling ring, which he and MJ use to try to locate Parker. They instead find "Peter-Two" and "Peter-Three", alternate versions of Parker who were summoned by Strange's spell. Ned and MJ find Parker and comfort him while the other Parkers share stories of losing loved ones; they encourage Parker to fight in May's honor. The three Parkers develop cures for the villains and lure Dillon, Marko, and Connors to the Statue of Liberty. Peter-Two and Parker cure Marko and Connors, while Octavius arrives to help and cures Dillon.

Ned frees Strange from the Mirror Dimension, but Osborn arrives and destroys the boxed spell, rupturing the barrier separating universes. While Strange maintains the barrier, an enraged Parker attempts to kill Osborn, but Peter-Two stops him. Peter-Three and Parker inject Osborn with his cure, restoring his sanity. Parker realizes that the only way to protect the multiverse is to erase himself from everyone's memory and requests that Strange do so, while promising MJ and Ned that he will find them again. The spell is cast, and everyone returns to their respective universe—including Eddie Brock, who leaves behind a piece of the Venom symbiote. Two weeks later, Parker visits MJ and Leeds to reintroduce himself, but decides against it. While mourning at May's grave, he has a conversation with Hogan and is inspired to carry on, making a new suit and resuming his vigilantism.

Cast

Tobey Maguire (top) and Andrew Garfield (bottom) reprise their roles as their respective versions of Spider-Man. Their involvement was kept secret by Marvel and Sony and denied by Garfield, leading to fan speculation up to the film's premiere.

• Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man

• Zendaya as Michelle "MJ" Jones-Watson

• Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Stephen Strange

• Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds

• Jon Favreau as Harold "Happy" Hogan

• Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon / Electro

• Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin

• Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus

• Benedict Wong as Wong

• Tony Revolori as Eugene "Flash" Thompson

• Marisa Tomei as May Parker

• Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker / Spider-Man

• Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker / Spider-Man

Additionally, Rhys Ifans reprises his role as Dr. Curt Connors / Lizard, an Oscorp scientist from an alternate reality who attempted to engineer a regeneration serum to help regrow limbs and human tissue, but transformed into a large reptilian monster, from Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), while Thomas Haden Church reprises his role as Flint Marko / Sandman, a small-time robber from an alternate reality who received sand-like abilities following an accident, from Raimi's Spider-Man 3 (2007). Tom Hardy appears, uncredited, in the mid-credits scene as Eddie Brock / Venom, reprising his role from Sony's Spider-Man Universe.

Reprising their roles from previous MCU Spider-Man films are Angourie Rice as Betty Brant, Parker's classmate and Leeds's ex-girlfriend; Hannibal Buress as Coach Wilson, Midtown School of Science and Technology's gym teacher; Martin Starr as Roger Harrington, Parker's academic decathlon teacher; J. B. Smoove as Julius Dell, Parker's teacher; and J. K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, the host of TheDailyBugle.net, while Jake Gyllenhaal appears as Quentin Beck / Mysterio via archive footage from Far From Home. Charlie Cox reprises his role as Matt Murdock from Marvel Television's Netflix series. Also appearing in the film are Paula Newsome as an MIT administrator, Arian Moayed as Department of Damage Control Agent Cleary, Mary Rivera as Ned's grandmother, and Cristo Fernández as a bartender serving Brock. Holland's brother Harry was set to make a cameo appearance as a drug dealer, after doing the same in Cherry, but his scenes were not in the theatrical release. Lexi Rabe, who portrayed Stark's daughter Morgan in Avengers: Endgame (2019), also had an appearance that was not included in the theatrical release.

The Verdict:

Without a shadow of a doubt, I can confidently say that Spider-Man: No Way Home is easily the best Spider-Man film in set within the MCU to date. I was fortunate enough to avoid spoilers like the plague that were going around for the weeks leading up to the release and got to see the film opening night while I was on vacation in Las Vegas, Nevada with my good (or rather amazing) friend, acomicbookgirl (on Twitter), that Thursday (December 16) night prior to the "official" release on Friday, December 17. My older siblings made the mistake of waiting until Christmas Day and were shocked to see that the showings that day were all sold out once word of mouth got around about how great this film was.

My thoughts on this film is going to be a little scatter-brained and out of order as I took very loose notes after getting home two weeks ago and I haven't had the time to squeeze in a second viewing quite yet.

Most of the film deals with the fallout from Far From Home where Mysterio frames Spidey for the London drone attack by exposing his identity and placing the blame on Stark Industries by association. The entire ordeal makes Peter, May, Happy, MJ, and Ned's lives a living hell from the constant heckling from friends and foes alike. Peter, Ned, and MJ can't even get accepted into the college(s) of their choice.

I thought it was weird that Ned's accent comes and goes throughout the film. Shocked that his family is Hispanic here as I was thinking he was Asian for the last few films. I actually took the time to read up on his actor and found out that he is actually born American (from Hawaii) to Filipino parents, so this makes perfect sense in hindsight. I don't know why I didn't pick up on it in Far From Home with the mock relationship to Betty Brant that the writers were making loose comparisons to his white Caucasian comic book counterpart, who becomes one of the third people to don the mask and identity of the Hobgoblin in the comics. That's what they were jokingly referring to when the other Spider-Men were talking about their best friends becoming supervillains.

It should be noted that Charlie Cox makes his proper MCU film debut as he reprises his role as Matt Murdock/Daredevil here, acting as the lawyer for the Parker family with all of these legal troubles from this ordeal. This made for a great cameo that I didn't expect to see so soon after Marvel Studios' own Kevin Feige made the announcement a few weeks ago prior to this film's release in a nonchalant manner. Between Cox being back and Kingpin returning in the finale of the Hawkeye Disney+ series, I really hope this means that Marvel Studios will bring back Daredevil for another season. From the high note that Season 3 of that show ended on, that show definitely deserves a chance to continue telling stories in that corner of the MCU, even if they might have to do some creative restructuring to make that continuity fit into the MCU properly.

While we're on the subject of cameos, Damage Control makes another appearance in the MCU after their appearance in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Savvy filmgoers may have notice that the late Dwayne McDuffie got a mention in this film's credits. That was more than appropriate since Damage Control was one of his original creations for the brand.

The only saving of the ordeal that caused Spider-Man's secret identity being out in the open is that MJ and Peter's relationship is in the open now, despite the headaches that they are dealing with all of the media and public attention.

Peter hopes to resolve this ordeal with Dr. Strange's help thanks to the Time Stone but finds out that it's not in his possession after the events of Endgame. Viewers should note that Wong is currently considered the Sorcerer Supreme due to a technicality since Strange was snapped for five years. Strange proposes an alternate solution in terms of a simple spell that would make everyone forget that he was Spider-Man. Peter tampers with the spell mid-incantation, causing Strange to "botch" it in a sense. This botch causes the core conflict of this film as this goof causes anyone who knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man to invade this reality, namely Doctor Octopus/Dr. Otto Octavius, Green Goblin/Norman Osborn, The Lizard/Curt Conners, Electro/Max Dillion, and The Sandman/Flint Marko.

Dr. Strange reveals that all of these "invaders from the multiverse" all died fighting Spider-Man and that's their fates. So he wants to return them back to the world's where they belong but Spidey wishes to "fix" them for they won't have to die. This is where I have a major problem with Spider-Man's motives here. I understand that he and Aunt May (who put this "not-so-brilliant" idea into Peter's head) have good intentions in their hearts, but I have to agree with Dr. Strange. These people are ALREADY dead in their home universes. Explain to me why is this up to our native 616 Spider-Man to fix when the Spider-Men from their native universes couldn't do it? Keep in mind that this decision to help these visitors ultimately leads to Spider-Man's greatest loss in this trilogy to date.

Spidey defeats Doc Ock after using his nanotech to override his mechanical arms and disable him with ease. Strange captures Lizard off-screen. Electro and Sandman were captured shortly thereafter with a handy magical upgrade that Strange gave to Spidey. Osborn turns himself in willingly after his Goblin persona is subdued and he gets pretty friendly with Aunt May at her local soup kitchen for the homeless. There's an interesting note here in terms of Osborn's dialogue. He mentions that he went to OsCorp only for it not to exist in this universe. This led for a lot of people to assume that Osborn doesn't exist in the MCU reality, but I beg to differ. What if Osborn in this continuity hasn't established OsCorp yet and he's already part of SHIELD or the US government like his comics counterpart during the Seige and Dark Reign storylines? We already know that Secret Invasion is already one of many projects in the pipeline for the MCU in the very near-future, so that's something that I don't want to rule out. I don't think Norman Osborn in this continuity (whenever or wherever he's going to be introduced) is going to be on the exact same path as the one from the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy.

Even though portions of this fight was shown in the many trailers for this film, the Dr. Strange vs. Spider-Man fight for the spell box was pretty fun in the Mirror Dimension. It ends with Spidey coming out on top by outsmarting Strange with MATH and trapping him there for majority of this film's runtime. I loved seeing Peter's intelligence being a pivotal factor to victory here as it lends itself back to his comic book roots. For all of the great power that he has, Spider-Man is among the smartest minds in the Marvel Universe as well.

With the spell box in his possession, Spidey releases the 5 villains and sneaks them into Happy's safehouse in hopes of "curing" them. Peter leaves the box in MJ and Ned's possession for safe keeping with the clear instructions to press the button to send them all back if anything goes wrong. This is something that's never addressed on why didn't they press the button when they saw all of the destruction that the villains caused on the news after Goblin showed his true colors.

When it comes to curing Osborn, his Goblin persona reemerges and beats the holy hell out of Spidey (WWE style at some points) as all of the villains flee, including a reprogrammed/reformed Doc Ock. I didn't get why Sandman aligned himself with the others when he just wanted to go home to his daughter. It just repeats his lack of better judgment from Spider-Man 3. I'm like dude, why aren't you helping Peter get the others back? I could understand Electro's decision to align himself with the other villains as he's more powerful than ever with Stark's technology and he didn't want to going back to being an Average Joe after getting a taste of more power than he's ever known even in his own native universe.

The biggest shocker for me during all of this was seeing Aunt May getting killed by Goblin with his glider due to severe blood loss. While it gave Peter his pain of loss/pivotal moment to earn his "With great power comes great responsibility" moment, I couldn't help but think that this was done to write off Marissa Tomei from being in any further films since she was friends with Robert Downey Jr. I couldn't help but think that she had it coming from her own naïve nature and being far too trusting of Osborn earlier in the film. It's like I said earlier, her decision to urge Peter into helping the villains instead of sending them back to their own universes like Dr. Strange originally wanted resulted in her own demise. I have to admit that I thought May was going to be alright after being hit with Goblin's glider since she was walking around just fine after the fact, but seeing all of that blood on her hit me hard. I was definitely on the verge of tears during that final scene between her and Peter Parker. Tom Holland definitely knows how to nail these gut-punching emotional moments, but I can't say that he topped his "I don't feel so good, Mr. Stark..." moment from Infinity War thought - at least for me anyway, but it was close.

To lighten the somber mood after the loss of Aunt May, we were treated to Ned using Dr. Strange's portal ring added some much needed hilarity.

Ned's bubbling around brought in each of the two other Spider-Men (Garfield and Maguire), which garnered a round of applause from the theater I attended. Bravo on Marvel keeping that a secret and banking in on the fanservice instead of caving to early fan demands and bemoaning online that they never revealed their castings in this film in the trailers. Should note that Toby's notably older here and that makes perfect sense. He mentioned that him and MJ "worked things out". Garfield states that Gwen's death made him bitter and more ruthless in his crime-fighting but Toby calls him "amazing" regardless. Garfield and Holland are stunned and impressed by Toby's ability to naturally produce web-fluid organically as they both have to make artificial webbing (a la the comics).

All 3 Peters work together to finish all of the cures for the remaining villains. Garfield cooks up the cures for Lizard and Electro while Maguire devises one for Goblin.

I have to take a moment here and say that I would really love to see Garfield get another crack at being Spider-Man. Sony Pictures' writing and meddling behind the scenes ruined his trilogy by no fault of his own. I thought he was a great fit for the character, more so than Tom Holland after the fact and even more than Toby Maguire prior. Toby Maguire's performance in the Sam Raimi trilogy is what got me to love these live-action films of Spider-Man in the first place (sans that horrible last outing in Spider-Man 3) and I can't knock Holland too much. He's just not physically who I would have picked to be Peter Parker in the MCU - not by a long shot. Holland looks so frail to play Spider-Man that it's not even funny.

In the final battle, all 3 Peters struggle with the combined threats of Lizard, Sandman, and Electro (mainly due to their loner tendencies in their own separate universes) until Holland gets them to follow his lead, given his experience working with a team, namely with the Avengers in the past. The cure plan works until Electro gets the better hand of all 3 Spideys. In a bizarre, yet obvious twist, Doc Ock lends a hand and cures Electro. I think most casual viewers will be confused how Doc Ock was able to grab Electro since they wouldn't be privy to the knowledge that Doc Ock's arms are non-conductible too (at least in some depictions of the character).

At this point, Ned's bumbling with Dr. Strange's ring brought him back from the Mirror Dimension where Ned and MJ fill him in on the fact that Peter's plan is working. It's no matter as the Green Goblin destroys the box that would send them back to their own universes, causing reality itself to come crashing onto the main MCU universe of a full blown multiversal invasion.

There's various fan speculation footage floating around YouTube (such as the video found here) and social media of this invasion playing out in slow-motion for you can see the silhouettes of the various invaders easier. I could be wrong, but I believe I spotted a Celestial among some of the invaders who were trying to break in. On second glance at that footage, I'm more inclined to believe that was Kraven the Hunter though. Other people on social media chimed in, spotting Scorpion, Black Cat, and Rhino were among some of the other invaders that were trying to get in the 616 universe.

Seeing all three Spider-Men onscreen like this made for touching moment, with Garfield saying that his line where he told Holland and Toby that he loved them was a complete adlibbed line that they kept in the film on the cutting room floor. You could tell that it meant a lot for the actors and not just the fans to see all of these actors come back together for this momentumous occasion. I'm glad that I was able to enjoy this opening night without having a single thing spoiled for me, despite the fact that people on several of the Discord servers I'm a part of and people that I follow on social media tried their damnest to spoil this for a lot of people or just couldn't rest until they confirmed that the other Spideys were in this film. Like seriously, calm your fucking tits. People were pissed off when Infinity War had a string of fake trailers (something films like Paranormal Activity have done in the past to avoid potential spoilers) with events that didn't transpire in the theatrical, full-length film, but I tend to love when Hollywood studios go out of their way with stuff like that. It gets people to shut the fuck up until said movie drops and makes you want to see it yourself, instead of combing through every trailer that comes then complaining that said trailers spoiled the film before it came out in theaters. Viewers only have themselves to blame when it comes to that kind of stuff and I don't ever feel sorry for them when they feel that way. When it comes to the people who have been intentionally spoiling and ruining this movie for others, you're worst kind of dicks/douchebags. At the same time though, the Internet and promotional materials online have all but given up the ghost on not preserving the fact that the former Spider-Men actors are in this film with their former villains, so in that regard, it can't be helped now that it's almost a month after the initial release in theaters.

As much as I loved seeing the Spider-Men reunited and back onscreen together, I can't sell the past villains' actors for their performances here either. Alfred Molina was a stellar choice for Dr. Octopus back in Spider-Man 2 and he still delivered in his return to the role here. Same goes for Jamie Foxx's Electro/Max Dillon, but I can't say that Rhys Ifans' Lizard and Thomas Haden Church's Flint Marko/The Sandman. Church had Marko's look down to the tee though since Spider-Man 3. Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborn/Green Goblin steals the show though with his performance reprising the character that he portrayed in the original Spider-Man film in the Sam Raimi trilogy. If the MCU ever casts another actor as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, that's going to be very tough act to follow.

Even though Goblin's revamped look isn't shown in the image below, I did appreciate that Marvel Studios took the time to clean up all of the villains appearances in this film, namely with better costumes for Electro and Goblin. I was disappointed that Osborn didn't get a more comics-accurate mask, but that was an extremely minor gripe in hindsight.

While we're on the subject of the villains, I have to question a few things:

• Why did Flint Marko/Sandman align himself with the other villains of the not-quite-so Sinister Six? I get that he wanted to get back home to see his daughter and family again, but it just seemed like he backpedalled from his character development in Spider-Man 3. Speaking of which, it seemed odd that more villains from the Raimi trilogy showed up in the MCU than anywhere else - Doc Ock, Goblin, and Sandman, but only Lizard and Electro popped up from the Amazing universe.

• Sandman aligned himself with the Wall-Crawler upon arrival to help deal with Electro, but sided with the other villains once shit hit the fan with Goblin's deception. Electro and Lizard's motivations weren't as muddled as Sandman's as they were addicted to the power at their disposal, especially Electro who could sense another level of power in this universe with the more advanced technology at his disposal.

• How did Electro wind up in the 616 universe when he never knew that Peter Parker and Spider-Man were the same person? He even flat out says it at one point in the film that he was expecting Spidey to be black underneath that mask since he wasn't aware of who he was. I was under the impression that Dr. Strange's corrupted spell was bringing people over who knew Parker's identity, so his arrival didn't make not one bit of sense here. They could have given his spot to Venom (Spider-Man 3), Vulture (Homecoming), or Mysterio (imagine if the ex-Stark Industries employees that he was working with uploaded his mind into an AI of sorts that continues using his projection imagery/illusion technology) if they were just pulling villains who knew Peter's identity.

• Norman Osborn said that he went to OsCorp and where his home would exist in his own universe, only to realize that they didn't exist in this universe. I saw a lot of people jump to the conclusion thinking that means that Osborn doesn't exist in the 616 universe. How do we know that this universe's Norman Osborn hasn't gone down that path yet? As far as we know, 616 Norman Osborn could be hiding within S.H.I.E.L.D. or the US government at this point and time before he could develop the OZ formula that turns him into a monster. I mean, c'mon. I think it's safe to speculate that fact since the MCU takes enough cues and nods from the Ultimates universe than the mainline comic book 616 continuity anyway.
  

• What was even the point of bringing the Tom Hardy Venom into the MCU when he had nothing to contribute to this film? It made for a mid-credits teaser that got a minor chuckle out of me, but I didn't see why they went out of their way to tact on that scene here and in Venom: Let There Be Carnage when it didn't amount to absolutely nothing. Sure, we saw that Venom did leave a small piece of himself in this universe, but now what? I'm curious to see where this is going because there is some obvious crossover/overlapping with these two universes as the early trailers for the upcoming Sony Pictures-made Morbius film shows Spider-Man: Homecoming's Vulture and advertisements of Spider-Man existing in his city while alluding to Venom as well.
  
  I guess that sliver of Venom symbiote left in this universe could always have the possibility of Venom popping up in the MCU and we have our own Venom multiverse going down the road with those three Venoms meeting up someday. That's an idea I rather them not do, but I would love to see 616 Peter acquire the Venom symbiote in a Secret Wars-like crossover once the MCU introduces the Fantastic Four and X-Men properly in a few more years though.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

You don't need me to tell you to go out and see arguably the best Spider-Man film to date. Hell, I'm convinced that it's the best post-Endgame film that the MCU has put out to date too. For me, this film has a lot of comparisons to the impact that X-Men: Days of Future Past had on the Fox X-Men film continuity to that date. This film cleaned up and resolved a lot of lingering questions and did damage control for a lot of sour grapes on previous outings as well, while simultaneously bringing back beloved actors to reprise the roles of characters that fans (old and new) have been following for years. My only fear and concern right now is where do they go next with this - both in terms of Spider-Man/Peter Parker's future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and whatever Amy Pascal and Sony Pictures wants to go with their own Spider-Man-centric universe. Tom Holland is said to have signed on for another Spider-Man trilogy for the MCU, while there's rumors floating around for a revival of The Amazing Spider-Man trilogy to round out that trilogy with one more film with Andrew Garfield returning as the Wall-Crawler. With the sequel(s) to the universally beloved Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-Verse right around the corner, I necessarily don't need another live-action Spider-Man film in my life anytime soon, but I wouldn't be quick to dismiss one either after this momentous film that served simultaneously as a homage, tribute, and celebration to everything that came before it.